NR and EotH Strategy

[ManicMaestro]

Hi guys! I'm relatively new to the mod (only been playing a couple of months) and while there is some good discussion about fleets and units for the IR and PA, I'd really like to get input from the community on how you use EoTH and NR units, both in space and on the ground.

Thanks!!

[Raltiir]

I don't really play the NR at all, but I play a lot of the EoTH.  For ground battles, they get two very strong units, though the gilzean is only one at the initial tech level. 

The Gilzean is an almost comically over powered super tank squad, off the top of my head I don't know if any other faction that has a unit that will win a one on one fight (by one on one I mean unit on unit, and gilzeans are a three tank unit) other than potentially artillery or air units, though they can still get taken out by turbolaser turrets.  THeir main advantage is that they have total freedom of fire even while moving, so even if they are driving by something, they can still blast it.  Combine that with their high damage and decent movement speed and you have one very good ground unit. 

The other strong ground unit they have is the airstraeker, which is a flying unit with very high speed, good fire power, and the ability power to weapons.  Airstraekers are very powerful units, but they have much worse AI even when directed to do specific things so unlike the gilzean, efficient use of them requires a large amount of micro managing.  One of their biggest issues is that if directed to attack a unit, the  maneuvers they preform if their initial run doesn't take out the target does not usually bring them far enough away from their target to line up on it again, so they end up flying around it getting shot without firing back, but this can be overcome with sufficient oversight. 

In space, the EoTH has a very nice mixture of ships with some clear strengths and only one notable shortcoming.  Aside from their lack of a super ship, which they lack for story reasons(and in my opinion game mechanic reasons), they have one of the most powerful non super ships in the game, and they also have under current iteration, the most point efficient capital ship in the game (capital ships is not including heavy frigates or below).  The phalanx is one of the best non super ships in the game, it has high health and shields, very very high weapons output, and non destructible engines, this combined with the EoTH's shorter retreat time makes it a very powerful choice for hit and runs. 

The Efficient ship I was talking about is the Ascendancy class star destroyer, which in addition to very good weapon damage, costs only 3 population points for a capital ship that can rival almost all 4 pop point ships in health and damage (I beleive the only 4 pop point ship that outright beats it is the Tector) and in addition, it releases all 4 of its fighters right away giving it one of the highest number of field-able fighters per point in the game, allowing a fleet to pop in, and drop 52 fighter squadrons for hit and runs is incredibly useful in a lot of cases.  They do however fall off in longer fights or against enemy fleets with decent anti-fighter capabilities as they only have the 4 squadrons they drop at the beginning.  They also have destructable engines unlike the other EoTH capital ships so they may not be appropriate for all engagements, and can be substituted for the heavy frigate chaff in those cases.

The chaff is I think the second most powerful heavy frigate in the game, falling behind the VSD I and being roughly on par with the crimson command VSD II.  It has high firepower, and decent shielding and armor, but most of its damage is from ion cannons, it does better against shields  then hull, but its missiles give it a little anti fighter capability and its power to weapons means that against any other frigate, its shields will last longer, allowing you to win even against the more powerful VSD I ships, and its maneuverability can sometimes allow it to even single  handedly take on larger ships and win.   

For general space strategy,  the EoTH has a disadvantage when it comes to defense because they lack a planet based defensive weapon, though they have two very good space defense stations.  Even though the Visvia is very powerful, in most defensive cases, it performs considerably worse than its cheaper counterpart.  It has a lot of firepower, but it will lose to even two capital ships often without taking even one out if it has no other support, on the other hand, a ordo defense station drops a large number of fighters, and in combination with a shipyard, can give you a large enough force of fighters to sometimes take out multiple capital ships.  It is worth noting that if you are being attacked mostly by frigate fleets and no capital ships, the visvia can be a strong defense against them. 

Offensively, The EoTH lacks a super ship at all tech levels, so the hit and runs with those that are so effective with other factions are something they have to try to match with lessor ships.  a fleet of phalanx class ships dropped in the right place can take out shipyards, golans' or out of place ships and often retreat with out losses, and then come right back to do it again.  Syndics and chafs also work in this role as they have indestructible engines as well.  Ascendancy star destroyers have destructible engines, but their ability to drop 3 fighter and one bomber squadron for only 3 population points lets them be dangerous on hit and runs as well. 

The one thing to be aware of is that their are a number of ships for the EoTH that are essentially traps, and a couple that while not traps, are very niche.  The Chaf is a very good ship but expensive for a frigate, the budirech is a weaker cheaper version that has the same population cost, and in most cases is not worth it as 3 budirech ships will lose to 2 chafs and cost more.  of the frigate class, the Chaf is the only really strong ship the EoTH has, the Auriette is a decent carrier, but for its cost you might be better off splurging a bit and getting a Ascendancy instead, and if you are low on capital ship construction capacity, the chaf is generally a stronger choice.  THe auriette is a decent choice in mass for defensive fleets, as in combination with ship yards and ordo defense stations will give you up to 59 fighter squadrons that are all garrison units, but the ships themselves are fragile so thy are generally outclassed in attack fleets.

 The two anti fighter corvettes are both vital to both offensive and defensive fleets as no other EoTH ships have good anti fighter defenses, though a couple have missiles giving them at least a chance to fight back (but with only a tiny number of missile hard points, this hardly qualifies as a defense).   The EoTH fighters are decent, but will lose in most cases to the carrier heavy NR and PA fleets unless you have some corvettes for taking down the fighters. 

Other than the interdictor, the only other frigate the EoTH have that is even worth mentioning is the Kariek.  At one population point and coming with a fighter squadron, it makes a decnet alternative to the anti fighter corvettes as anti fighter support, and it can also make itself a fairly powerful and quick to build disposable fleet with the ability to do quite a bit of damage.  Every other ship in the EoTH is pretty hard to find a good use for, not that they are all bad, but with the couple of spectacularly powerful and efficient ships that the EoTH has, the ships that are below average like the awesome but incredibly weak nuruodo and they end up becoming trap choices by comparison. 


Because I really like the Nuruodo, I'll explain its issue.  It is a ship that seems best designed to function early game, because it is not efficient enough per population point to choose it when you have plenty of money later, but because of so so maneuverability and its interesting firing arc, it ends up being very bad for defense with the limited control set up in the game.  Early game, as EoTH, you have a serious lack of safe expansion ability because you start with pretty much the smallest territory in most of the GCs, and the lowest income, combined with the fact that both of your neighbors have at least one SSD available it becomes imperative to fortify to at least some extent while shoring up your income.  because of this, the early game opportunity to make use of the ship while it is still good (its good when you are poor and your enemies are have fewer capital ships and heavy frigates, and it is bad against heavier ships and really bad against fighters) ends up being extremely limited.  to make matters worse for it, by the time you are ready to expand you usually have enough money to just make more expensive but more efficient ships instead. Even on from the ground up where the poor phase lasts for a long time, its too fragile to make it a good choice over the more expensive ships since they are far sturdier. 

EDIT: Even with paragraphs, this still looks like a wall of text.

[ManicMaestro]

Wow, Raltiir. That was an awesome response, thank you very much.

[Pali]

I'm Raltiir's opposite... play lots of NR, almost no EotH.  I don't think I can be as detailed as he was, but...

The NR actually starts off quite potent on the ground.  Your Era 1 light vehicle factory can churn out airspeeders and armored freerunners, which should be the bulk of your ground forces (until you replace airspeeders with V-Wings in era 3, though these are built by the heavy factory).  Your isolated planets in many GCs can actually be relatively easily defended on the ground even if you can't get space units there to protect them, just put down a couple of cheap light factories and churn out a solid garrison of airspeeders and freerunners to rush the landing zone the moment the ground battle begins, and just wait watching units be slaughtered as they land until the AI gives up.  Bonus points if you spend the time using an infantry unit to capture and upgrade build pads while doing it. T2-B tanks are useful if the enemy's rushing a lot of stormtroopers and can kite well due to their shields, but overall I think the freerunner superior due to its heavier firepower and hull strength.

The heavy tanks and artillery I tend to consider inferior to others, and I don't use them all that often.  Really, your ground strength is in Jedi heroes (incredible damage soaks that can be easily healed and boost all your other ground forces), your mobility, and your early air dominance which can allow striking behind enemy lines.  There is no need to take the time bringing up the T4-Bs to slog through the turbolaser tower line if your air force has already taken out the generator.

Space is a bit different.  Without your heroes, especially early on, space is a bit rough.  Your main strength is in your fighters and bombers.  Every fighter you field has shields and missiles (except I think the Defender?), and against anyone your fighters are simply better and will be able to slaughter theirs unless badly outnumbered.  This advantage does decrease a bit over time - it'll still be there, but preybirds and the like start to make your life a little harder on this front in later eras.  Watch for enemy anti-fighter ships, these are higher priority targets for the NR than they are for the other factions.

In terms of capital ships, you start out weak, but in later eras get very strong.  The MC80 is not worth building - ever.  The MC80b is better in every way, and for only a few hundred more credits.  It still can't stand up to enemy caps in a toe to toe, but with power to shields they are excellent tanks and perfectly suited to hold a line, and lack a targetable shield generator.  A few MC80bs with a group of dreadnaughts using power to weapons behind them can stand quite well against comparable forces, and effective use of fighters will be what tips the balance in your favor.

Later on, the MC90 should be built instead of the MC80b if you can afford it - again, simply better in every way, and able to absorb a ton of damage.  Nebulas don't have the durability of the MC90, but they're still pretty buff and can dish out a lot of damage very quickly with power to weapons.  The Endurance is great, and every fleet should have one or two - but only that, and only use one at a time unless you are going for fighter spam.  It has a 7-point pop cost, is expensive, and is fragile with limited firepower of its own... but it'll toss out a lot of your better fighters later on.  Keep it safely behind your other caps.

Frigate-wise, the Nebulon B exists to distract fire from your other ships - the AI seems to like targeting them early on, but if you're not paying attention and you don't hit PTS in time, once their shields go down they're pretty worthless.  Assault frigates have some utility if the enemy's fighters are a bigger threat than his caps, but this is rarely the case.  Until you get BACs, I pretty much only build dreadnaughts - they can take a beating (unusually for the NR, they have weak shields but strong hull), carry two squads of X-Wings, and have PTW and a lot of turbolasers while being cheap and having a 2-point pop cost.  BACs should replace dreads in your fleets once you have access - same role, just better at it.  Corellian corvettes are great at killing enemy fighters and scouting a map, always have a number with your fleets to help maintain fighter superiority - the gunship is sadly not as useful, but it is a better scout because PTE for it doesn't run out.  Never bother with Marauders, and the light carriers quickly become obsolete as they only carry X- and Y-Wings.

As on the ground, space heroes are very important and should be used carefully but often, and again you fortunately have a lot of them - including one with an SSD from era 3 onwards.  However, you can't build super ships except for ONE Viscount in era 5, which you cannot replace if you lose it, so be very careful with your big ships.  The best way to deal with enemy supers is to lure them over planets with ion cannons, though the first shot won't drop the shields completely of an Executor - I can't recall if they will the Sovereign.  But with the shields down, the ion'll drop the super's damage output greatly and, almost as importantly, will prevent it from retreating so long as the ion effect is still in play when the retreat countdown ends.  The second best way is bomber spam.  Try and preserve Capt. Iillor to help lock down supers - she's the only interdictor you'll ever have, so be careful with her.

[ManicMaestro]

Pali, thank you for your response as well. You've both been really helpful.